Today, gamification is everywhere. From email tools to goal trackers, gamifying something makes it more engaging. Business gamification uses rewards and game mechanics, such as point scoring, leaderboards, competition with fellow employees and rules of play, to boost engagement in a business setting.

In the words of KISSmetrics, "Gamification is the concept of using game design elements in non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging."

Ideal for small to enterprise-sized companies that want to enhance engagement and performance ranging from sales quota to content creation, business gamification is a modern and innovative tactic that can be applied for virtually any industry.

Why a Lack of Engagement Hurts Companies

Employee engagement is a critical component for the survival of any business. When it doesn't exist, the effect can be detrimental. Here are two common ways a lack of engagement hurts companies:

Disloyal Customers: Due to the evolution of the Internet and the on-demand economycustomers now have dozens of purchasing options. This level of accessibility provides heightened potential for customers to partake in business with your competitors and abandon the brands they've shopped with before.

Underperforming Employees:Employees don't optimize business processes when they fail to utilize provided technology. For businesses that find themselves with underwhelming KPIs, this is likely due to poor performance by their employees. Getting employees motivated to always reach your company’s KPIs is a process that business owners should account for every single day. Many business owners supplement employee motivation with optimizing technology or trying to heighten efficiency–however this does not always replicate directly to a better performing work environment.

While most companies have responded to these difficulties by investing in more technology (there was a $1 trillion uptick between 2007 and 2012 alone) this approach doesn't work. Despite all that spending:

54 percent of customers are inactive in loyalty programs.

A whopping 69 percent of clients don’t partake in any online forums or communities.

50 percent of employees don’t use company-provided software.

88 percent of employees don’t utilize of social software or platforms.

Instead of investing in endless tech, companies need to focus on finding ways to measure and influence the actions that matter to them. The measurement has to come in the form of engagement. Are your employees, the ones using this new technology, prepared & willing to bring on an entire new method to complete their job? Look at your business and research: Is it really the lack of technology, or the lack of motivation my team has to reach certain goals?

This is where gamification comes in.

Humans are competitive by nature. Customers and employees desire recognition, praise, incentives and attention. Thankfully, gamification helps fill all these needs, and in doing so, it makes customers more loyal and employees more engaged.

The Application of Business Gamification

Business gamification applies to many areas of activity, ranging from online marketing to employee engagement. Commonly used as an incentive to enhance productivity and growth, business gamification can be used to improve customer retention and conversion, or even to improve the employee onboarding and training processes.

When executed correctly, business gamification can have a massive impact on the business environment, leading to more committed employees, better outcomes and a larger willingness to engage in new behaviors.

In 2015, Garter research concluded that 40% of the top 1000 organizations in the world have already implemented gamification into their businesses.

Although the concept of business gamification used to seem obscure, it's achieved mainstream popularity in the last several years. In fact, M2 Research predicted that spending in the gamification market would reach $2.8 billion by the end of 2016.

Business gamification works by incentivizing certain behaviors, encouraging other behaviors and tapping into a person's inborn desire to play games. People are naturally inclined to compete and constantly better themselves–so why not implement this exact mentality within your business? While game makers have understood for years that making something fun is a great way to get people to participate, companies are more recently starting to figure our and adopt the concept within their business.

For example, a company that wants to use business gamification to enhance employee engagement might create a leaderboard, wherein employees get points for their willingness to collaborate with other team members or advisors. While there are dozens of ways to facilitate gamification, each approach relies on the concept of incentivizing new behaviors and making the "game" enjoyable.

When executed properly, gamification provides recordable data, which can help a company adjust or alter its strategy as needed. Keep in mind that, while business gamification takes the foundations of game play and applies them to business, gamification doesn't involve creating a game. Instead, it utilizes game mechanics to enhance a predetermined experience or approach.

Convoso: Your Source for Applicable Gamification

Convoso is the leading provider of Gamification applied within the contact/call center environment. By providing gamified learning management systems, Convoso helps streamline the process of agent training and onboarding which in turn, helps eliminate high agent turnover, while boosting agent engagement and productivity. By gamifying your call centers’ KPIs, agents are finally incentivized to as invested in your business as you are. Fostering healthy competition within a call center of agents looking to constantly better themselves... thus the betterment of your entire company.